Apparently EA charging Stations are frying EV cars

[Pioneer74]

Might cost a bit more than EA, but availability is high - app is live - no waiting for free VW iD4 driver - no down chargers like EA - 170kW rate!

And their plug and charge system actually works.

Sponsored

 

[TaxmanHog]

Moderators: How can shared content be displayed in plain-text in the posts? Information will be lost as the cross-site plugins change.

Can't as I understand our forum.

The op is a hyperlink to the reddit forum thread discussing the issue, go there and join the conversation (over there)

 

[Drayday55]

I have about 9000 miles now and I dc charge about 3 to 4 times a week from 35% to 80%. I'm worried about this too but it seems like it's an isolated problem. The EA site by my house is less than a mile away so it's way to easy for me. And I get 167kw on the 350kw chargers. When I finally get my pro charger at home installed I shouldn't have to DC charge as much.

 

[Tenetke]

I have about 9000 miles now and I dc charge about 3 to 4 times a week from 35% to 80%. I'm worried about this too but it seems like it's an isolated problem. The EA site by my house is less than a mile away so it's way to easy for me. And I get 167kw on the 350kw chargers. When I finally get my pro charger at home installed I shouldn't have to DC charge as much.

I’m around 19,000 miles and the only issues I’ve had with EA are they aren’t working or they are charging slow.

 

[MRButtler]

Thousands of people are charging every day, and there were two cars bricked at chargers a couple weeks ago? Doesn't seem like a very widespread issue to me.

How often does a gas pump total cars? It's completely unacceptable for cars to get bricked by chargers at all.

Can't as I understand our forum.

The op is a hyperlink to the reddit forum thread discussing the issue, go there and join the conversation (over there)

The reddit box didn't show up until I enabled the javascript for that content. Whenever that breaks, there will be no archive of even the subject. Guess it's just the times.

 

[queuewho]

How often does a gas pump total cars? It's completely unacceptable for cars to get bricked by chargers at all.

With the way it is, where one or two cars got popped out of 10s of thousands, it is likely not anything wrong with the charger. It's gotta be the cars having some sort of very untimely defect. Even if it is something with the charger, it might not even be something they can fix, it could have been some sort of grid surge. They may never figure out what exactly caused it.

 

[vandy1981]

And their plug and charge system actually works.

I have not had any problems with EA plug and charge with over a dozen sessions. I did have an issue with the EVGo plug and charge because of a billing issue. The sessions would time out immediately after starting the charge but there was no explanation (thought it was a vehicle or charger issue). It turned out that the credit card on my account was expired.

 

[vandy1981]

With the way it is, where one or two cars got popped out of 10s of thousands, it is likely not anything wrong with the charger. It's gotta be the cars having some sort of very untimely defect. Even if it is something with the charger, it might not even be something they can fix, it could have been some sort of grid surge. They may never figure out what exactly caused it.

Exactly. "Untimely defects" are more likely to occur on EA than any other CCS network because EA is the largest CCS network in the US by far.

I think these stories are pure clickbait, just like most of the EV fire stories that pop up periodically.

 

[Zprime29]

How often does a gas pump total cars? It's completely unacceptable for cars to get bricked by chargers at all.

We don't know 100% (to my knowledge) if it was the charger's fault or a fault with the car/truck. We can only look at the data that's available to us and attempt to make an informed guess as to what happened. Given the number of EV's that charge at EA every day for a couple years now, and we only know of 3 instance? Consider the number of Lightning's that have been having faulty battery modules. What might happen to one of those battery modules if it fails while fast charging?

I suggest looking up Mean Time Between Failure. What we are seeing is a result of social media's ability to spread news quickly and our tendency to jump to a conclusion. The reality is that hardware fails at some point and an unlucky few will get hit sooner rather than later. Let's be glad that the truck only seems to brick while charging and not while driving. *knocks on wood* I was driving a 15 passenger van at freeway speed when the steering column sheered and I lost control. Thankfully all that happened was running up against a guard rail and I was able to brake and come to a stop. I'd prefer my failures occur while stopped.

 

[metroshot]

I’m around 19,000 miles and the only issues I’ve had with EA are they aren’t working or they are charging slow.

I found the reason!

New hardware company that EA is using offers a super fast charge experience.

New EA HyperFast 3 thunderbolt 350kW chargers are on par with the EVGo 350kW chargers.

 

[RickLightning]

How often does a gas pump total cars? It's completely unacceptable for cars to get bricked by chargers at all.

The reddit box didn't show up until I enabled the javascript for that content. Whenever that breaks, there will be no archive of even the subject. Guess it's just the times.

Quite a bit of hyperbole in your post. Total? Blowing a fuse is "total"?

How often does a gas station put water into someone's fuel system, or dirt, which requires the tank to be drained, fuel system cleaned out, etc.? Don't know, but it happens. I suspect it happens more often than an EV charging station bricking a car.

 

[queuewho]

Consider the number of Lightning's that have been having faulty battery modules. What might happen to one of those battery modules if it fails while fast charging?

I'm really terrified of this. I wonder if there were more lightnings on the road, if they would do a recall for whatever the issue is.... with so few, they might have done the math and decided that the failures would be sporadic, allowing them to maybe keep up with replacements as they are needed.

 

[jimfigler]

How often does a gas pump total cars? It's completely unacceptable for cars to get bricked by chargers at all.

The reddit box didn't show up until I enabled the javascript for that content. Whenever that breaks, there will be no archive of even the subject. Guess it's just the times.

No one even knows if the chargers were the cause. Maybe if they were plugged in to chargepoint or evgo they would have crapped out too.

 

[Zprime29]

I'm really terrified of this. I wonder if there were more lightnings on the road, if they would do a recall for whatever the issue is.... with so few, they might have done the math and decided that the failures would be sporadic, allowing them to maybe keep up with replacements as they are needed.

Yep, I would believe it if someone told me that was the case. Will be very interesting to see how things progress after the spring time ramp up (assuming they are able to keep that schedule).

 

[queuewho]

Yep, I would believe it if someone told me that was the case. Will be very interesting to see how things progress after the spring time ramp up (assuming they are able to keep that schedule).

It's possible with the ramp-up, they will have enough new batteries on hand to replace all the ones from 2022 that are likely to fail. At that point maybe they start sending recall notices.

Sponsored